Chapter 556 - Come again?

Victoria says something I never thought I would hear from her, and she says it in her usual calm manner.

"Come again?" Sophie asks in disbelief, trying to confirm what she just heard.

Myrra pokes me, “Feral one, what are thermonuclear warheads?”

I ignore Myrra and ask Victoria, “Where the hell did you get them?”

“One of our Hell difficulty groups consists of soldiers from a submarine. They got into the tutorial with some missiles that had warheads on them. Around 120 warheads in total, but lost most of them on the early floors.”

“Holy fuck,” Sophie mutters.

Victoria glances at her before turning back to me, “They used a few to level up, primarily on the 4th floor against the Colony. But during the tournament, when the system made it possible to die, one of them sacrificed himself and tried to kill me with it. So, I took the remaining warheads from them. Currently, there are 9 in my possession.”

“You mean to tell us you surv…”

“Feral one, what are thermonuclear warheads? Tell me!” Myrra interrupts Aaron.

“I will tell you later, Myrra, or ask Min-Jae, he should be able to explain it to you,” I wave her Myrra off and turn to Vic, “Can you use them?”

“I cannot. It took them multiple floors to find a way to use them. Apparently, the warheads become useless when you remove them from the missiles. There is a built-in detonation system in the missile specialized to arm and trigger it, plus a safety system to prevent such use. But they found a way around it with some inscriptions or skills.”

“Nat, do not…” Sophie starts.

I pay her no mind and ask, “Inscriptions, you said? Can you give me one?”

“I will send it to you after I return to my common area,” Victoria confirms.

"As if you needed something like that," Sophie sighs in defeat and turns to my sister. "Victoria, you said they used one against you?"

"Yes. They didn't like how I went about things and found themselves incapable of dealing with me any other way."

“How the hell did you survive that?”

“I apologize, but that is something I see no reason to tell you. I hope you understand.”

“...Got it.”

“Thank you.” With that, Victoria stands up and turns to me, “I will head back to the area of my round. Nathaniel, you can visit me anytime, but I understand that you are currently busy, so I will come by.”

“We will see each other during the second part of the 1st event then, Vic.” I stand up as well and open the door so she can exit; we then head downstairs.

“What kind of Hell difficulty groups did you get in your round?” I ask curiously.

"As I said, those soldiers. Then, a bunch of professional archers taken during their training, some even preparing for the Olympics. A group of millionaires who were spending their weekend on a superyacht. Some of them are still alive. And a few smaller groups that mostly lag behind on lower floors."

“About that warhead…” I start, lowering my voice when we are far enough.

Victoria nods, “Don't worry, I will send two.”

“Love you, Vic.”

She reaches and ruffles my hair and, for a short moment, smiles at me.

As we exit the tree, I see the guy I sensed entering this area. Jean as tall as always and probably even more muscular than before. That little shit called… Spacepup? Something like that. He is here as well.

The last time I saw Jean, he was close to dying after I beat the shit out of him during the Beyond expedition, all to make sure he would go through me if he decided to kill someone from my group. So, I'm curious how he would behave in our meeting, especially knowing he is Pride, the same as me.

“Noname!” he shouts happily, the loss he suffered not evident at all in his voice. He is as overbearing as before.

Immediately, I feel my energy start to drain away.

“Later then, Nathaniel,” Victoria waves at me and passes by Jean, who follows her until she jumps with incredible force, almost turning it into flight, and heads back toward her area.

Jean just shakes his head in the end and turns back to me, “I came to challenge you!”

“Yeah, no.”

“I won't take that as an answer.”

“You will have to,” I say as I start heading toward the workshop. After a moment of confusion, he rushes and starts walking by my side.

“We made a deal, and I promised to keep it and intend to continue. My requirement….”

“I know,” I wave it off. “Trust me, beating the shit out of you could be fun and distract me for a while, but I have much more important things to do now. Why don't you spar with Grumpy?”

“That tiny black-haired girl?”

I nod, “You lost against me, right? And I didn't even go full out, so you have to prove yourself worthy of challenging me. Defeat my underling, and I will fight you.”

I know this maniac won’t miss an opportunity for another fight, so this should distract him enough. And Lily herself said she was curious about how she would handle herself against him.

“Okay!” Jean answers and starts heading toward the tree, calling out “the tiny girl with the huge ax.”

Well, that was easier than expected.

Lucien watches his group member head there, sighs, and then shudders. As he leaves, I see him shudder again and hear him mutter while looking around, “Fuck, why do I feel like I'm being watched?”

Having solved things, I send a message to Miwa to join me if she wants to, and then I shut myself inside the workshop. For a moment, I sit down on the bench nearby and relax a bit. Doing so, I look at my hands. Both of them are shaking, and the tips of my fingers are twitching. My breathing also becomes rougher, and I feel like vomiting. That sense of fear, the thought of another death caused by my training, rises up inside me again.

I feel so tired, not physically but mentally.

Not even three days have passed, and I have already died more times than during the entire duration of the seven day long 1st tournament.

The heart, black mana, Mana Circulation testing, orb training testing, splitting my mind into so many parts. Sometimes, even that kills me. Then there are the movements of kinetic energy I'm testing, so dangerous and volatile they trash my insides. Testing my abilities after deactivating my mid-arcane passive, storing too-large mana structures in my mind, and more.

I test the limits of my body and mind over and over again. Outside, it would be dangerous, but here, I can do it while only dying.

And damn, some of my limits reach much further than I thought. I knew I had built an amazing base and that some of my abilities synchronize very well, but even I am surprised at how far I can push myself before dying.

And that line is pushed further and further with each hour.

I know I handle dying here better than most of the others. Someone from Easy difficulty wouldn’t even think of it. People from Normal might die once and stop, needing days to calm down. Someone from Hard might push themselves multiple times during the entire duration of the tournament, and Hell difficulty might accumulate a dozen or so deaths.

But for me? A dozen deaths is something I sometimes go through in just an hour or two.

Sensing Miwa moving closer, I take a deep breath in. A slow exhale follows.

My hands stop shaking, and I stand up and fix my clothes. Then I slide a bit into [Focus] and call for her to enter.

***

After hours of working on the item for Channeler and creating more mid-epic items to sell, I'm taking a short break.

Closer to the end, Miwa started helping more actively, often giving me advice based on her experience as a smith on Earth and what she has learned on the 2nd floor.

She is polite and puts effort into everything she does. She is also talented and hardworking. From what she told me, she had no problem finding teachers as she climbed the floors with her Hard difficulty group, often even using her metallic right arm to strike up a conversation with the blacksmiths she met.

There's also something more interesting she's telling me.

“I can't believe you haven't heard of it. It's already been two years since the tutorial started!” As she talks, I feel like a student being cussed by their teacher. “And no, I'm not making fun of you or lying to you. As I said, if you create an item and sell it, or give it to someone and that someone kills a monster with that item, you get a tiny share of experience from the kill.”

“Look, I'm too tired to try to excuse myself. How tiny a part of experience?”

“Very tiny. But imagine you make thousands of items, and they are used in combat. Over decades, it can gain you a nice amount of levels and might even level up your skills or give you passives or traits.”

“Okay,” I stop her, “imagine you live for 200 years. You make tens of thousands of items that are used. Wouldn't that make it possible for you to level up quite a bit?”

“Possibly, but at a certain level, it slows down a lot. It's hard to imagine someone becoming a Champion this way. But you have to agree with me that it makes a lot of sense. Sure, a lot of crafters level up by buying live monsters from hunters and killing them themselves or hunting on their own as well, but it's nice that the other option exists, too.”

“Nothing for armor?”

“Nothing, as far as I have found out. Maybe it influences your passive offers, traits, or skills, but I don't think there is any leveling.”

While thinking about it, I move toward the table and start heating up the metals I had pre-prepared there. “So, as always, it's all about killing.”

The molten metal moves through the air, manipulated by my mana radiating and the arms I form from it. “Unsurprisingly, the way of leveling you just mentioned probably doesn't work that well inside the tutorial. You can make a lot of weapons on one floor and sell them for use. But the moment you enter a different floor, that floor will vanish along with your weapons, taking your chance at leveling with them.”

“The alloy you are making isn't connecting together that well; try to cool that darker metal a bit more. When it's colder, it connects better with the endurium. And I agree with you, that's why I made a lot of weapons and brought them here.”

Miwa smiles and moves closer to observe the process, “They might not be as sought after as the ones the great Tent Creep made, but I will sell all of them, and our dear colleagues will help me level up.”

After Miwa leaves, I continue for a bit longer before I call it a day and put seven more items into the system shop. Who would have thought that being able to push myself literally to death to make items could shorten the required time so much?

While the workshop cools down from all the heat I generated, I close my eyes and enter within my mind space.

This time, I find myself on top of the tallest of the Giza pyramids. Both Whitey and I are dressed like British adventurers from over a century ago. Light-colored trousers, sturdy boots, and loose shirts tucked into belts weighed down by pouches. A vest and a wide-brimmed hat complete the look, the kind once worn by those who looted artifacts for their museums or collections.

“I don't have that much time, so any fancy trick you could teach me?” I ask as I plop down next to Whitey.

“A few, but you will need to improve your mastery before I can even show them to you,” he replies, his reaction as usual. “Your output is good; you are a brute and can handle huge amounts of kinetic energy. Fine control is still lacking, and your movements aren't natural and instinctual yet.”

“I’m just a human, after all,” I sigh.

“A thief, a cheater, and a maniacal little shit,” Whitey confirms.

“Sounds just like me,” I reply and stand up.

To prove my point, I redirect most of my mana toward generating kinetic energy.

The first heartbeat shakes the top of the pyramid we stand on.

The second one sends vibrations through the air, and sand collected on the stones rises up.

The third heartbeat makes the air close to us vibrate, and Whitey stands up as well.

On the fourth, I actively channel more of my body mana and reservoir through my heart, damaging it in the process, but it’s not like I should worry about it here. This mind space and all the training with Whitey, all the deaths, might be one of the reasons why I can push myself so far during the tournament.

A few more heartbeats, and I feel like I cannot handle any more of it. The vast amount of kinetic energy flowing, bouncing inside of me, held at bay by all my effort.

“Fucking brute,” Whitey sighs and jumps back. He doesn't even bother trying to counter it. He cannot handle that much kinetic energy.

I stomp, and the pyramid doesn't just collapse. It detonates.

Each stone fractures and shatters midair flung outward like shrapnel from a bomb. The shockwave ripples through the desert, sending dunes rolling in waves, carving trenches into the sand as if an unseen hand is slashing across the landscape.

The sky itself seems to ripple, dust and debris hanging suspended in the air. What remains of the pyramid is nothing but a chaotic storm of stone and dust floating in the air, held in place by me.

Then I charge Whitey.

Just a short clash before I return to the reality of the tournament.

***

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